Monday, November 21, 2011

Lucy can be a little wary around me at times - I think it's because I can't resist picking her up and smooching her silly. And she's currently in this "you can hold me but only on my terms" phase. Depending on her mood, she'll cuddle and purr for hours or be completely standoffish.

Luckily, my camera has a 60x digital zoom. So, I can get right up to her eyeball.
As I was zooming back out, I realized she wasn't getting any smaller. The zoom lens had piqued her interest.

Friday, November 18, 2011

We are lucky enough to live within driving distance to a LEGO store (well, maybe not so lucky on our credit card) so we end up visiting at least once a week. Yes, there are other places you can buy LEGO, like Toy's R Us (but they markup their LEGO so be aware of that when they go on "sale"), Target, Amazon etc... but the customer service at the LEGO store is fantastic.

The staff is in a word: amazing. Especially Daniel and Lauren. Lauren actually helped me feel through the various Series Minifigures packages, identifying different shapes. Great attitudes - especially when you consider how chaotic it can get in there (it's a kid mecca!), the burning lights (my only gripe) and now, the Holiday crowd, I'm always impressed by how friendly and helpful everyone is.

Also, be sure to join the VIP program. It's free to join and tracks your spending at the store - you get points for every purchase which you can use towards future purchases. If you're buying at the LEGO store and not on the VIP program, you're passing up free LEGO.

Sunday, November 06, 2011

I decided a while back to turn my crafting studio into a LEGO room. I never used it so I packed up my scrapbooking supplies and sold them on Craigslist. I did however, keep all the furniture since it was ideal for storage and building models and MOCs.

Here's the view from the door. Most LEGO builders have their work surfaces pushed up against a wall so they can stack small, modular shelves for easy access. We might do that eventually but this allows both of us to work on either side. Plus, I kind of like the flow of the room this way.

The desk is made from the Adams tabletop and Adams shelves from Target and those are IKEA Expedit shelves. I'm really, really happy with my choice of desks. I went back and forth between the Pottery Barn version and Target's version but in the end, the Adams table made much more sense and it was half the price at the time.

Unfortunately, it looks like Target jacked up the price - the table top and 2 pairs of side shelves are now $750 total. I think I paid $475 with discounts and free shipping. And you definitely want to get free shipping since it weighs close to 200 lbs.

View from the window.

One of my favorite things in this room are the new minifigure display cases. It's so nice having them out on display and dust-free. The link will show you a how-to guide on how to build them - they're super easy!

The main Expedit shelf is divided into 2 sections. I used the top shelves for display and the bottom half for storing different sets. The white magazine holders have all the instruction booklets sorted by theme.

[Yes, those white and green tissue flowers are not exactly LEGO related but they're pretty and one of the few holdovers from when this room was all girl-crafty!]

Here are the bottom shelves. Store sets or part them out? This has been an ongoing debate for quite a long time. I like storing individual sets in containers - saves a lot of time digging around when we want to re-build. But James wants to part everything out so we have access to LEGO that would otherwise be sitting in bins.

We compromised and only store the sets we know we will rebuild. There are umm... 75 more bins downstairs waiting to be labeled.

The closet holds our loose LEGO and UCS sets. (I updated it since I first wrote this post now it looks like this instead of the photo above when there was still a door - more infohere)

Each of those storage containers are individually labeled and then organized by element and color. I won't even mention how long this takes us - suffice it to say, it's a labor of love.

We still have a crazy amount of LEGO to sort through and organize since our dining room table still looks like this:

That's it - a brief tour of the LEGO room in progress and how we store and organize our collection. And yes, we know it's a little over the top. But it makes us smile!

Update: May 28, 2012. We revamped the Lego Room again to accommodate our growing collection - here's version 2.0.